Fuel - Injected
How a hit song and hard work helped this
Pennsylvannia band put its career into overdrive
From Guitar One Magazine - October, 1998
by John Stix
Guitar One thought you might be interested in the road map that Fuel used to go from being relative unknows to having a shot at the big leagues. Guitarist/songwriter Carl Bell and vocalist/guitarist Brett Scallions were more than happy to supply the routing.
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Guitar One: What were you doing five years ago?
Brett: We were together as Fuel. We did a lot of cover stuff just to make money. We were touring around the Northeast coast area.
Carl: We were just playing gigs wherever we could. We were doing cover stuff, mixing in originals. occasionally, we would do an all-original show. But you go back to the covers to survive.
Brett: We did "Pinball Wizard" from the Who, "Love Me Two Times" from the Doors, the Kinks' "Lola".
Carl: We would cover Nine Inch Nails and White Zombie. We covered "More Human Than Human." I would do it in drop-D with a slide. I don't know if that's how they do it or not. We did "Head Like A Hole" by Nine Inch Nails.
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Guitar One: How did you make the transition to playing more originals?
Carl: We were always recording music, writing, and working that angle. That was always our goal. Obviously, with any band, there are steps you have to take to get to that point. I was reinvesting money in ADATs and recording gear...We had original songs in the sets that we put together.
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Guitar One: Any of those songs on your major-label debut, Sunburn?
Carl: Yeah, a song called "Ozone," which was written probably five years ago. We have been closing our shows with that song forever.
Brett: We recorded that song too many times!
Carl: That was on the Porcelain CD that we independently put out ourselves. We recorded it, produced it, mixed it, distributed it, and promoted it. We did the whole thing on a microcosmic scale in Harrisburg, PA. "Shimmer," the first single--we've been playing that for maybe three or four years now.
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Guitar One: Why did Fuel decide to make the move to Harrisburg, PA?
Carl: We had been through Harrisburg before, and we knew people in radio there. There wasn't much happening for us where we were. We had been traveling around so much, we thought we would get to one central place and start building a fan base. Harrisburg is close to Philly, Baltimore, D.C....
Brett: I can't imagine being a small fish in a huge pond, like in New York. Harrisburg seemed to fit, and it was comfortable for us. We already knew quite a few people there and had somewhat of a good following started before we decided to move there.
Carl: It was a conscious decision, but at the same time, I think the hand of fate placed us there. We didn't say, "Yep, we're going to Harrisburg, and we're going to land a record deal." It wasn't like that; it just seemed like the right thing to do.'
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Guitar One: When you made the move, did you give yourselves a time limit?
Brett: I don't think we gave ourselves a deadline. It was something that we knew we had to do. We were going to stay in, pretty much as long as it took.
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Guitar One: Did you find the audiences there more receptive?
Carl: You could definitely sprinkle a little more originals into the sets. And then all three radio stations in Harrisburg picked up on the song "Shimmer," and began spinning it like crazy. Kudos to the stations there for doing that. A lot of stations won't support local bands. They were spinning it all the time, not just on local shows. I can't explain it, I don't know why. But it all worked.
Brett: They really have a good way of backing up their musical community. We're not the only local band that they supported like that. There are some other great bands like the Jelly Bricks, Squash, and Solution A.D.
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Guitar One: When exactly did you record Porcelain?
Carl: The year we moved to Harrisburg, we began recording it. We put that out in '96. It took us about a year to get it all together, because we were recording before our shows. It was all recorded in venues throughout Harrisburg and down in Tennessee. We would go in, set up, and try to get a take in between them taking out the beer bottles and the clanging of all that stuff. After the bar closed, we would go back in and try to get some more takes. It took us about a year to get it all together because we'd go back and take out the soundboard and mix it in Brett's house. You have only a day or so to mix because you need the board for your live show. It was tough, but it worked out.
Brett: Porcelain was a seven-song EP. We did a cassette the same way. We had already done a cassette of different songs back in '94.
Carl: The first one was a little darker, with a lot more minor keys. At that time, we were trying to feel ourselves out and see where the other guy was going. Porcelain kind of glued us together.
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Guitar One: What about self-promotion? What was effective in getting the word out?
Carl: We divided up into different parts. Brett would call radio, so we'd have one point man that they would talk to. So we didn't have four or five guys doing it.
Brett: It kind of breaks down the chaos barrier.
Carl: You don't have to explain who you are every time. Another guy in the band would do the distribution. He would go out to retail stores and drop the CDs off. Another guy would do merchandising.
Brett: It was like we had our own little label.
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Guitar One: Would you make radio calls every day?
Brett: Maybe not every day, but I would call at least two or three times a week. I was calling a good three hours away, brom Harrisburg to the Allentown, PA area, to Philadelphia, to Baltimore. Quite a few other places, too.
Carl: We would drop by the station with a CD and do what we could do. Some places were receptive. Other places would be like, "Yeah, yeah." But we just kept hammering on and persevering. We finally got some radio play in Harrisburg. We got to know the program director there. he saw us at a few shows and liked what he saw. Once you start getting a few doors open, you can use those people to help you open other doors, and it just snowballs.
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Guitar One: Esentially, radio picked up on you, and then the labels.
Carl: It was through the radio play. We were getting spun about 30 times a week on some of those stations and we were retailing very well. A lot of retailers were doing well. So we had a story. It's very central to build some kind of story to get it all together. Some of the prgram directors from the stations started calling up their friends in New York at some of the labels. They said, "I've got this band here, and I'm spinning it this much, and people are digging it. You need to check this band out." It was word of mouth, like that.
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Guitar One: That happened before you sent Porcelain all over the place?
Carl: We sent it out to a few labels, but you would never hear from them. Nobody would respond. Actually, our booking agent now, Mike Krebbs, heard it before we were signed. He was out in L.A., called us and said, "I love this record. I'm coming for you guys. I want you." He was one of the first genuine responses we had. He is now our booking agent.
Brett: Three days after that, he calls us on the phone and says, "Hey guys, want to open for Silverchair?"
Carl: The Electric Factory was a nice, big place for a show and was actually the first time that Sony 550 saw us. But we had a story. I think it's so essential to build some kind of story. You've got to have something where you say, "I've sold these many," or "This many people see us at shows."
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Guitar One: You make your own luck.
Brett: That's very true. That saying about being in the right place at the right time is so true.
Carl: But we were traveling, we were playing a lot. We had a full PA, full light show. We had two guys driving an equipment truck. We had three guys in a Honda Civic behind that, and we played all the time. We would go, set up the PA and the lights, play our show, tear it all down, pack it up and go home.
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Guitar One: It's a great story that you did what you wanted to do, on your own. You put it out yourselves and promoted it yourselves. In speaking to other young bands, what things would you tell them to avoid?
Carl: Avoid not doing it. Avoid procrastinating, and do it now. The gear is there. Prices are low on all that stuff. It's affordable. You can get such great gear! Ten years ago, you couldn't get a digital recorder; you would need hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now you can get all this new cool gear, which makes it so easy.
Brett: ADATs, those Tascam DE88s, and all that stuff is so convenient.
Carl: I just got a new Roland unit, the 1680. All that stuff is right there. The Roland unit is pretty pricey right now, but still it's all within your reach. Just do it. And the only way you learn to do it...is to do it!
